Air traffic control (ATC) is a service that promotes the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of air traffic. ATC services can assist in promoting safe air travel by providing information which assists in safety, preventing collisions with other aircraft, obstructions, and the ground; assisting aircraft in avoiding hazardous weather; assuring that aircraft do not operate in an airspace where operations are prohibited; and assisting aircraft in distress. ATC services can also assist in the orderly and expeditious flow of aircraft, which helps the efficiency of aircraft operations along the routes selected by the operator. Air traffic control services are provided by air traffic control (ATC) systems. An air traffic control system typically includes a computer and display system that processes data received from air surveillance radar systems for the detection and tracking of aircraft. Personnel such as air traffic controllers use and operate the ATC system. Air traffic control systems are used for both civilian and military applications to determine the identity and locations of aircraft in a particular geographic area.
A controller using an air traffic control system can use a so-called “flight progress strip” (FPS) for each flight being tracked, where the FPS provides a compact and portable way to track a flight, keep a record of instructions issued to the flight, allow other controllers to observe flight information, annotate one or more aspects of the flight information, and to pass this information to other controllers who take over control of the flight. Flight progress strips, in the past, have been made from a printed strip of paper that controllers can hand to each other manually when they pass control to each other. In recent years, however, some ATC systems have replaced the paper FPS with electronic flight progress strips (e-FPS) (also known as electronic flight strips (EFS), digital flight strips, and computerized flight strips). The electronic flight strips are displayed on a computer screen. In some systems, the computer screen displaying the touch strips is a touch screen, and the controller can perform operations on the strips, and pass the strips to other controllers, via touch screen operations.